SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Beibu Gulf Tourism (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Beibu Gulf Tourism is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
increasing energy prices, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Beibu Gulf Tourism
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Beibu Gulf Tourism can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Beibu Gulf Tourism, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Beibu Gulf Tourism operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Beibu Gulf Tourism can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Beibu Gulf Tourism
2. Improving business portfolio management of Beibu Gulf Tourism
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Water Transportation sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Beibu Gulf Tourism
Strengths of Beibu Gulf Tourism | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Beibu Gulf Tourism are -
Training and development
– Beibu Gulf Tourism has one of the best training and development program in Transportation industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Digital Transformation in Water Transportation industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Beibu Gulf Tourism digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Beibu Gulf Tourism has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
High brand equity
– Beibu Gulf Tourism has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Beibu Gulf Tourism to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Beibu Gulf Tourism is present in almost all the verticals within the Water Transportation industry. This has provided Beibu Gulf Tourism a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Ability to lead change in Water Transportation
– Beibu Gulf Tourism is one of the leading players in the Water Transportation industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Water Transportation industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Beibu Gulf Tourism in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Water Transportation industry
– Beibu Gulf Tourism has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Beibu Gulf Tourism to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Water Transportation industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Beibu Gulf Tourism to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Water Transportation industry
– Beibu Gulf Tourism is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Beibu Gulf Tourism is one of the leading players in the Water Transportation industry in China. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in China. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Beibu Gulf Tourism are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Beibu Gulf Tourism comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Water Transportation industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Learning organization
- Beibu Gulf Tourism is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Beibu Gulf Tourism is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Beibu Gulf Tourism emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Beibu Gulf Tourism has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Beibu Gulf Tourism has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Weaknesses of Beibu Gulf Tourism | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Beibu Gulf Tourism are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Beibu Gulf Tourism is one of the leading players in the Water Transportation industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Water Transportation industry in last five years.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Beibu Gulf Tourism has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Beibu Gulf Tourism, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Water Transportation industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Beibu Gulf Tourism has high operating costs in the Water Transportation industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Beibu Gulf Tourism lucrative customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Beibu Gulf Tourism has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Water Transportation industry using digital technology.
Lack of clear differentiation of Beibu Gulf Tourism products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Beibu Gulf Tourism needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Beibu Gulf Tourism has some of the most successful models in the Water Transportation industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Beibu Gulf Tourism should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Beibu Gulf Tourism has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Water Transportation industry over the last five years. Beibu Gulf Tourism even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
High dependence on Beibu Gulf Tourism ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Beibu Gulf Tourism still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Water Transportation industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Beibu Gulf Tourism has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Beibu Gulf Tourism needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Water Transportation industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Beibu Gulf Tourism can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Beibu Gulf Tourism is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Beibu Gulf Tourism needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Beibu Gulf Tourism Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Beibu Gulf Tourism are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Beibu Gulf Tourism can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help Beibu Gulf Tourism to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Buying journey improvements
– Beibu Gulf Tourism can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Water Transportation industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Beibu Gulf Tourism to increase its market reach. Beibu Gulf Tourism will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Beibu Gulf Tourism has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Water Transportation industry. This can help Beibu Gulf Tourism to build a more holistic ecosystem for Beibu Gulf Tourism products in the Water Transportation industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Water Transportation industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Beibu Gulf Tourism in the Water Transportation industry. Now Beibu Gulf Tourism can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Beibu Gulf Tourism in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Water Transportation industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Beibu Gulf Tourism to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Beibu Gulf Tourism can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Water Transportation industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Beibu Gulf Tourism can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Beibu Gulf Tourism can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Beibu Gulf Tourism operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Water Transportation sector.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Beibu Gulf Tourism can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Beibu Gulf Tourism is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Beibu Gulf Tourism can utilize new technology in the field of Water Transportation industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Water Transportation industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Beibu Gulf Tourism can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Beibu Gulf Tourism can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Threats Beibu Gulf Tourism External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Beibu Gulf Tourism are -
Regulatory challenges
– Beibu Gulf Tourism needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Water Transportation industry regulations.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Beibu Gulf Tourism can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate Beibu Gulf Tourism prominent markets.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Beibu Gulf Tourism may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Water Transportation sector.
Increasing wage structure of Beibu Gulf Tourism
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Beibu Gulf Tourism.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Beibu Gulf Tourism is facing in Water Transportation sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Beibu Gulf Tourism has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Water Transportation industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Beibu Gulf Tourism needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Water Transportation sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Beibu Gulf Tourism in Water Transportation industry. The Water Transportation industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Beibu Gulf Tourism business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Beibu Gulf Tourism in the Water Transportation sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– Beibu Gulf Tourism needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Beibu Gulf Tourism can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Water Transportation industry.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Beibu Gulf Tourism needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Water Transportation industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Beibu Gulf Tourism Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Beibu Gulf Tourism needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of Beibu Gulf Tourism is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of Beibu Gulf Tourism is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Beibu Gulf Tourism to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Beibu Gulf Tourism needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
